Listening In
by Rudes215
Summary: On the day a small plane crashes in the streets of Seattle, Arizona finds herself on the outside of a conversation she was never expecting to overhear. Probable oneshot.


**Not really sure where this came from. I was taking a break from writing my other story, and an idea just kind of popped into my head, so I wrote it down to get it out of there and to take a break and write something different. It turned into this. Kind of a long oneshot I guess? I don't know, figured I'd post it. Kind of a take on a different way the plane crash in Seattle episode could go? We'll say it was born out of some obvious frustrations with the show as of recently. If there are any obvious mistakes, I apologize. I wrote it fast and while I did go back over it, I didn't have time to be quite as thorough as I normally can be.**

 **Obviously, as always, I don't own these characters.**

* * *

Arizona walked swiftly down the hallway, sighing happily after successfully delivering her second baby of the day. A plane crashing in downtown Seattle was obviously not the way she'd planned on her day starting, but after what she considered to be a justified freak out, she'd managed to get right back on track and had turned her day around. She was fine. She was awesome, in fact, and had already performed multiple successful surgeries; so all in all, she considered her day a success so far. She continued down the quiet, empty hallway, about to turn a corner when she heard the distinct muffled sounds of someone crying coming from an empty room. Cautiously, she made her way closer, and stopping just outside the door, Arizona realized that the sounds she was hearing were sounds that she knew all too well. Slowly peeking into the room, sure enough, she could see the shaking form of a crying raven haired woman. Her back was to Arizona, but there was no mistaking that form, or the hushed sounds the woman was trying her hardest to mask. It took all of the strength Arizona had not to run into the room and wrap the sobbing woman into her arms. Old habits, as they say. Still, Arizona could feel her chest tighten in the familiar way it always did when she had to witness a distressed Calliope Torres.

Her ex-wife was crouched next to a desk, her head bent onto her hand as she cried and Arizona could just hear the effort the other woman was putting into trying to stop, but she could see that the Latina was slowly losing the battle. The blonde surgeon had no idea what to do from here. She couldn't just leave Callie crying alone in a room, but was it really a good idea to go in and console her? The awkwardness had only just left their working relationship and Arizona had only recently been able to keep the pain at bay when she was around the other woman. The love of her life, as Arizona still considered her to be. No matter how broken Callie walking out of that therapy office made her feel, no matter how much time passed after her entire world fell apart and her heart shattered, Arizona could never shake that truth. Callie would always be the love of her life.

But Callie had also been the one to end their marriage. As right as she was to do so, as Arizona now understood her to be, that fact still remained. Their marriage was no more. Even though that decision took a humongous weight off of both of their shoulders and actually allowed them both to thrive, as Callie had tried to get her to see that it would when she'd made that brave decision that Arizona herself was just too terrified to make, it also landed her in the completely torn situation she was in now. She knew she still loved Callie and as such, felt a painful need to comfort her when she saw her like this, but should she? She immediately thought to the day of Nicole's brain surgery, when Callie had found her and had quite literally provided her a shoulder to lean on. She could still feel the comforting warmth of the Latina's perfect hands in hers while she cried and let her fears for her friend and mentor out. She also thought of the aftermath of such comfort, where she went home and cried for a completely different reason; for a completely separate loss that she felt with full force after Callie had left her in that room following the surgery. She remembered how she'd once again mourned her failed marriage and the loss of the love of her life after Nicole's "point" on being alive, and how she'd missed it had really sunk in: it hadn't been the first time she was "just to the left" of such a point and the first time had destroyed her relationship.

She'd been immensely grateful to the brunette that night, for the familiar comfort that the other woman had provided; more than she'd probably ever be able to express with words. And now, she genuinely wanted nothing more than to walk into that room and provide the same thing, but remembering the pain that had accompanied the comforting stopped her. She knew it wasn't for purely selfish reasons either; she could see in Callie's hopelessly expressive eyes that night as she left that the overwhelming sadness over their history and what they'd lost was not only felt by the blonde. They'd made progress since then. Sure, their separation was never something Arizona had wanted and it'd been indescribably painful to watch Callie so determined to move on, but the blonde had, for all intents and purposes, slowly come to terms with the fact that it was simply something she was going to have to let the brunette do. She was still in love with Callie, but Callie wasn't in love with her anymore and it was just something Arizona was going to have to get used to. She liked to think she'd done that. Or at least come close. Hell, Arizona had actually witnessed Callie kissing another woman without having a complete breakdown. Granted, she'd known that particular woman was a total psychopath and that there was no way that it could have ever turned into something real, but still. Just watching that kiss had sent Arizona's head into a tailspin and made her want to find a brick, or a cinder block, but she'd kept it together and actually remembered having told her ex-wife to "kiss everyone". What. A. Joke.

Point being, they were finally getting to a place where they could coexist and Arizona knew that walking into that room, especially with Callie in the state she was in, could potentially send them hurdling back in the opposite direction. She didn't want to do that. And yet, here she was: standing outside of a room, watching the woman who still held her heart, and probably always would, break down for reasons unknown, and Arizona was completely frozen in place, at a total loss for what she should do.

Deciding she simply wouldn't ever be able to just walk away from this woman when she was crying, Arizona prepared herself to accept whatever consequences checking on Callie would cause. Before she could enter the room however, the door on the opposite side opened, and even though she turned so that she was completely out of view of the room, she instantly recognized the second person's voice.

"Hey, I think they might need you back down in the...what's wrong?"

Arizona smiled as she leaned with her back against the wall just outside of the door, hearing the genuine concern in Alex's voice. She thought about leaving now that someone was there to figure out what the problem was; and better yet, it was someone she genuinely trusted, but something made her stay. She knew it was probably wrong, but as she continued to hear the heartbreaking sounds of Callie's cries, Arizona just couldn't help herself; she _had_ to know what was wrong.

* * *

Callie had tried to keep the tears under control all day. She'd managed pretty well up until her last surgery. Call her crazy, but having to finish off an above the knee amputation for someone who had just been in a plane crash hit a little too close to home. She'd managed to find a secluded area of the hospital by the time her racing heart became too much, but as soon as the tears had begun to fall, she'd been unable to get them to stop or even slow down. Managing to keep the full blown sobs she could feel deep in her gut at bay, Callie realized she was just going to have to let herself break down. She needed to get it out, and so she would; she'd allow herself a moment to fall apart, and then get it together to continue with her day.

If only she could slow down her racing thoughts; images and sounds and feelings flew through her mind at warped speed. There was no congruence, and no thought stayed long enough for her to figure anything about her current state out. For a moment she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up, like someone was watching her. Had she been more with it in that moment, she might have recognized the feeling, and would have known _exactly_ whose eyes were on her without even having to turn around. She was entirely too caught up in trying to pull herself together to realize such things though, and just as she was about to turn around to check behind her, the door on the other side of the room opened and she quickly put her face in her hands to hide her breakdown from whoever had just entered the room. Upon hearing the voice of the intruder, she looked back up.

Alex crouched down against the door so he was on the same level as Callie, concern lacing his features. He clasped his hands in front of him and just waited while she cried some more. They'd been here before, and he knew she knew that he would wait. As if she read his thoughts, he heard her chuckle mirthlessly.

"This scene is oddly familiar, huh?" Callie looked up and met the sad smirk Alex gave her. Her lip trembled as a few more tears fell from her eyes.

"Well, I know you're not sitting here crying because you can't go home and cry in front of your wife this time, so maybe a little different." Alex knew that Callie appreciated dry, dark humor when she was upset like this; it helped her spill.

Outside in the hallway, Arizona frowned. Was that really something that Callie would do? She'd come to the hospital and breakdown because she couldn't do it in her own home? Arizona's chest tightened with remorse; she could guess the period of time to which they were referring.

Callie let loose a small, short laugh. "Yeah well, I don't even _have_ a wife anymore...so there's that." Her face twisted almost in pain as her face fell back into her hands with a sob.

Alex quirked his eyebrows at the brunette. "Dude, is that what this is about? You miss your wife?"

Arizona couldn't stop the small glimmer of hope she felt at the question. She cursed her own naivety when she heard Callie respond.

"No-it's not-I don't..." Callie ran a hand through her hair as she sighed. "Alex of course I miss her, but I don't..." She looked at the floor, trying to organize her swirling thoughts and emotions. She could feel Alex pause waiting for her to figure her crap out and explain all of this to him. "I didn't know if I would ever get to see them again." She was still looking at the floor, a distant look in her eyes as she began to speak.

"What? Who?" Alex was confused by her words for a moment, but taking into account the darkened tone her voice had taken and the almost haunted expression on her face, he realized what she was talking about.

Just outside the door, Arizona felt a chill run down her spine at the sound of her ex-wife's voice.

"I was at home, waiting for Arizona. I had plans for that night. Sofia was already asleep and I was...waiting." Callie could remember that night so clearly. She wished she couldn't, but it was burned into her memory. She closed her eyes, and could almost instantly transport herself back to her bed at the apartment; she could feel the lingerie that she'd been wearing on her body, could smell the candles that had been lit in the room as she'd waited for her wife to come home. "I waited for a while, thinking that maybe they'd gotten delayed or something. I mean, whose brain automatically goes to plane crash, ya know?" Brown, watery eyes widened momentarily. "After a while, I tried calling her. It didn't really surprise me that it went to voicemail; Arizona almost always forgets to turn her phone back on when she gets off of a plane. I left her a voicemail; nothing special, just a quick one to let her know I was thinking about her. And I kept waiting. I don't know how much more time went by before I started to worry, but I know it wasn't much. If Arizona was going to be late, she would almost always let me know somehow. Plus, she was with Mark and so the fact that neither of them had called really freaked me out. So I tried calling Mark. Nothing. I tried Lexi. Nothing. Hell, I even called Cristina...fucking nothing."

Alex could hear Callie's breathing begin to quicken, but he made no moves towards her, knowing she needed her space to say all of this. He was finally aware of what this freak out was about. Sure, it was obvious that the people who were actually in a crash would feel some crap today, but it suddenly dawned on him that maybe the person who almost lost her wife and _actually_ lost her best friend in a plane crash might have some shit stirred up in them too. He took a deep breath and waited for her to continue.

"I tried not to lose it, but after no one answered the phone, and it was well past the time for them to be back, I just started to get the sickest feeling in my gut. I knew something was wrong, but I still couldn't bring myself to believe that the worst had happened. I was pacing all over the apartment, trying to come up with reasons for their lack of communication and stopping to stare at my front door, hoping that the love of my life would come walking in, complaining about traffic and falling into my arms. I checked on Sofia more times than I could count; it calmed me down to watch her sleeping peacefully and safe, but only until I realized that her mother and father were the people I was freaking out about not being able to contact, and then I would go right back to freaking out." Callie wiped at her face even though more tears were falling to replace them faster than she could wipe them away. Another sob escaped her as she thought to what happened next on what was the beginning of the worst four days of her life. "I don't know how long I waited, hoping that Arizona would come home or call. I left her I don't even know how many voicemails that night. Finally, my phone rang. I almost threw up when I saw that it was Owen calling me because then I just knew. He told me he needed me to come into the hospital. I tried to convince myself that it was work related, but I think that was just so I could wake up Sofia and get us there without completely losing it. As soon as I walked into the conference room and saw his face, I knew for sure. I remember shaking my head and telling him no. Then I remember begging him not to say it, as if not hearing it would make it not true; maybe it was all a bad dream. Eventually, knowing that I needed to hear it, and maybe he needed to actually say it out loud, I mean _Cristina_ was on that plane, he grabbed me by the shoulders and told me that they never made it to Boise, that the plane had gone down and they weren't really sure where." Callie looked down at her now shaking hands as she remembered what it felt like to hear those words. "I'm glad I at least had the mind to drop Sofia off at the daycare, because this time I actually did throw up. I ran out of his hold and puked my guts out. I remember he came up to me and rubbed my back, I could hear his voice was trembling and I knew he was barely keeping himself together. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor in the corner of the conference room while Owen filled in Richard and Bailey. I could barely pay attention to anything; I remember their voices sounded really far away, almost as if they were under water. Nothing seemed real after those words came out of Owen's mouth." Callie looked back up, making eye contact with the pained eyes across from her. "How did you find out?"

Alex cleared his throat, but was unable to keep all of the emotion out of his voice. "Uh, Ri-Richard found me later after a surgery I was in was over and told me." He remembered feeling as if he'd been punched in the gut. He was supposed to have been on that plane.

Callie shook her head before looking back down. "The whole rest of that night is a blur. A terrifying, sad, fucked up blur. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't...I couldn't _breathe_ Alex." Callie clutched her chest, thinking about the constant tightness that she felt for those four days. "I thought...I didn't want to think she was dead, that _any_ of them were. But we had all of these people 'trying to prepare us for the worst' and I just felt like my whole world was falling apart. Bailey took care of Sof because I could barely bring myself to leave the on-call room I stayed in. I couldn't go home. She was everywhere. Arizona was _everywhere_ there and I just couldn't face being surrounded by her smell, her things, our home when she could've been..." The brunette shook her head as yet another strangled cry left her body. "I thought she was dead; and that made me want to die too. And then I just thought about how selfish I was. I had a daughter. A daughter who potentially just lost _two_ of her parents. How could I entertain such thoughts when I had a daughter to think about? But I did, I really did; if Arizona was dead, I didn't want to live anymore. I spent four days trying to figure out how to keep myself from falling apart when the love of my life was potentially dead; I tried to figure out what it meant for me now that I was potentially a single mom. Sofia went from having three parents to one, and I couldn't wrap my brain around any of it. Her dad, her mama, fuck, even her _godmother_ was on that damn plane." Callie looked up and saw Alex's jaw clench. Those four days had been hard on everyone. A wave of guilt ran through her. "By the f-fourth day, before we were told that they were found, I remember thinking that I didn't even _want_ them to be alive anymore. I kept thinking that, if they were alive, what kind of hell they must have been going through, what kind of pain they must have been in, and the thought of Arizona having to go through something like that, I just…I couldn't bear to think about it. And then when they told us that they found them, but there was one female casualty…well, you remember how well I reacted to _that_."

Alex gave her a small nod. He'd been one of the people in the room when the news was broken to them that they had been found, that there were multiple serious injuries and one death. They weren't able to give an identification on who the death was, only that it was a female, and he remembered being the one to have to catch an exhausted, overwhelmed, hysterical Callie as she'd lost her ability to stand and instead crumbled to the floor in a heap of uncontrollable, shaking tears.

She gave him a look of gratitude for catching her. "I was so scared. The four days they were out there, I felt numb. It's like my whole existence was in a state of limbo until I knew either way what happened to her, but hearing that one female had died, the very real possibility that I had actually lost her was just too much for me. I felt like I'd died twice in four days. First when Owen broke the news of the crash, and again when we found out that someone had died and it was a female. I don't think I've ever felt so hopeless in my entire life than when I had to try and come to terms with never getting to hear her voice again, or see her beautiful blue eyes light up again. She's the love of my life, so what the hell was my life supposed to be like without her?"

Arizona's hand was firmly clamped over her mouth to stifle any noise as hot tears ran down her face. She'd never heard Callie describe what those days were like for her; and hearing it, even after so much time had passed, made her entire body shake with grief. Her selfish brain after the crash hadn't allowed her to even think about what that time could have possibly been like for her wife. Hearing Callie's painful recount of what it was like for her made it hard for Arizona to control herself as her heart ached for what the brunette had to go through. Her entire body wanted to fall to the floor in sobs. Sure, she was stuck in the woods with an infected, painfully broken limb attached to her, but the love of her life was alive and safe. She knew that, it was all she had thought about for those four days in the woods: Callie and Sofia were safe. She'd clung to that thought for dear life. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to not know if Callie was alive or dead for days. It was bad enough after the car accident when Callie's fate had been unknown for barely _one_ day, and Arizona had been able to be by her side that whole time. She didn't know what she would do if she had _no_ idea one way or the other if Callie was alive, if she was in pain somewhere, or if she were dead.

Alex decided not to make mention of the tense Callie used when calling Arizona the love of her life. He wasn't stupid; he knew that was still true. As Callie finally stood, to lean on the desk, he stood in his place as well, crossing his arms over his chest. "She didn't die though."

"No, she didn't. And I was so conflicted when we heard that it was Lexi who died. I felt like a horrible person, but a part of me was relieved. It wasn't Arizona." Callie's face took on a pained expression of guilt. Truth be told, _everyone_ on that plan had meant something to her, and she felt like an awful person for feeling anything but sadness when they heard the news of Lexi. Everyone had meant something, but no one meant more to her than her wife.

"That's understandable Cal. She was your wife for crying out loud. It's not like you weren't upset about Lexi."

"I was. And my heart broke for Mark because I knew how much he loved her. And then when he…when Mark…" She still had trouble with the fact that her best friend was dead. God knows she could have used his support recently. He body shook with more tears. Today brought about so many things for her, it was hard to focus on just one. "That crash changed so much. It changed everything. It took my best friend from me. I had to watch him die. Sofia will never remember her father, will never know what a great man he was." This thought always hit Callie like a ton of bricks. She was devastated when Mark had finally passed. It was hard for her to know that her daughter would never know the kind of person her father was; her best friend. His passing was even harder to take considering it happened during such a time when things were still so hard for her wife and Callie was still trying so hard to make things better. She hated what the crash had done to Arizona, to their family. "It took so, _so_ much from Arizona. Things she'll never get back." Callie shook her head, angry at the circumstances that plane brought about. Her expression hardened as something she frequently thought about crossed her mind. "I should have never made her that promise about her leg." Even though her lip still trembled, Callie's eyes were starring daggers at the floor.

Arizona could feel her heart beating hard in her chest. They both had known that Callie shouldn't have made that promise; she should never have asked her to, but it had never actually been spoken of between the two. Naturally.

"What else were you supposed to do? She was your wife." Alex never thought Arizona's leg could have been saved. Everyone knew that; he knew Arizona had known that too, but trauma and stress made people do and say crazy, unrealistic things and they all knew that as well.

"I was supposed to be honest with her. I made her a promise as her wife that I should never have made from a doctors stand point. I knew better than that, I would have never made such a promise to a patient." She would never forgive herself for giving Arizona, and herself if she was being completely honest, that false hope.

"Well she wasn't a patient, Torres. She was your wife. A wife who you almost freaking lost in a plane crash that killed not only a friend, but your _best_ friend. That's why _patients_ can never be loved ones, because they freak out, like patients do, and they freak us out right along with them because we love them. Yeah, that was a stupid promise to make as a doctor, but you were making that promise to your scared wife while you were scared too."

"She trusted me, Alex. She trusted me, and I fucked everything up. And I continued fucking everything up after that." Callie brought a frustrated hand up to rub her forehead.

"Yeah well, you both did." Alex made his way from the door over to Callie at this point and put both of his hands on her shoulders. He wasn't usually one for sentimental crap, but she was his friend, and he'd grown up enough by now to pull through for his friends. "You thought your wife was dead for four days. Your best friend died. You can't go through crap like that without it seriously affecting you. You had things taken from you that day, Torres. You lost things too."

Callie couldn't help the almost bitter laugh that fell from her lips at his choice of words.

Arizona winced slightly at her ex-wife's laugh, knowing _exactly_ what she'd found humorous about what Alex had said.

Alex looked at Callie with confusion. "What?"

She shook her head and almost smiled. "Nothing. I know…I know we both messed stuff up and I know it's not like we were perfect before the crash, but I just can't help but feel like our relationship wouldn't have imploded the way it did if that stupid plane hadn't fallen out of the sky. If I hadn't made such a stupid promise that made her hate me that…"

"That what? Look, _plenty_ of things would be different if that plane hadn't of fallen out of the freaking sky. Plenty of things would be different if a shooter hadn't run through this hospital all those years ago, if you hadn't been thrown through the windshield of a car, if any number of crazy crap things that seem to happen to all of us, didn't happen…shit, _everything_ would be different." Alex widened his eyes as he thought about all of the shit that had been thrown their way over the years.

"I know…you're right. I'm sorry. Just this…all this crap today. I just don't like being reminded of what killed my best friend and what I consider to be the catalyst to the end of my marriage." She sighed and ran her hand across her face, trying to keep herself calm.

"Well who would want to be reminded of that?" Alex smiled as he leaned next to Callie on the desk and bumped shoulders with her while she let a small chuckle fall from her lips. He paused, thinking of something this day had reminded _him_ of. He figured since they were already on the subject, it couldn't hurt to ask Callie about what was on his mind. "So I have to ask…" He took her ' _hmm'_ in response as a go-ahead. "Why did you keep the fact that I'm the one who actually made the cut on Robbins' leg a secret?"

Arizona felt all of the moisture leave her mouth. Surely she'd just heard Alex wrong. _He_ cut off her leg? Why wouldn't Callie tell her that? Why on Earth would Callie let her hold such a thing against her for so long? Her brain was spinning.

Callie briefly looked up, thinking about his question for a second before answering him. She shook her head as she sighed. "I made the call. I mean, no matter what, it was still me making the call to take her leg; and I knew that she was going to hate me. I was trying to protect you, and her. She was already going to feel completely betrayed by me, and even if she didn't want to hate me, she was going to. She was going to need someone to hate, someone to blame. I didn't want her to hate you to, I wanted her to have somebody. She _needed_ to have somebody; somebody she still trusted completely."

The blonde in the hallway thought her heart had stopped. All of the things that were coming to light as she listened to her ex-wife were almost too much for her. At first, she'd wanted to run into the room, to tell Callie that she never hated her, but she knew that would have just been a lie. Truth be told, she _had_ hated Callie, at least for a little bit. She'd been completely consumed by hate. Hate for her wife, hate for herself, hate for their situation. Callie knew that was going to be the case, and so she'd accepted that role and had instead made sure to protect one of Arizona's closest relationships so that she wouldn't feel completely alone. The depths of Callie's care and obvious love absolutely blew Arizona away in that moment.

Alex shook his head towards Callie in understanding. He'd known the brunette had her reasons for keeping it from her wife, and she'd known Arizona better than anyone, so he never questioned it. "You really loved her."

Another small laugh escaped Callie. "I still do. I always will. Part of me wishes that wasn't the case, but I know it's true. I never stopped loving her, and I never will. I was just _so_ focused on keeping it together for both of us for so long; so consumed by putting my head down and pushing through all of the pain and crap that we went through, that eventually, I just stopped paying attention to things. I stopped listening to her; so much that, I barely even realized that she'd stopped talking to me. We stopped talking to each other. Then we could never get on the same page. She didn't feel like she had the space to tell me things, which she didn't. And then here I was, making assumptions because I was scared, accusing her of things that frightened me before she could catch me off guard with them. We stopped trusting each other…but I never stopped loving her. I never dreamed we wouldn't be together. I just realized that we were both trying _so_ hard to keep what we had, when in reality, what we _had_ was gone long before we ever broke up. Trying to fix us together was slowly killing the both of us separately. I'd already watched her go through so much, and she was slowly coming back from it, but being with me was only going to bring her back down again, and I just couldn't do that. I could _feel_ how our relationship was hurting me, and I was _watching_ it hurt her, and I just couldn't let that happen anymore. I know I'm the one who ended it, and I know I hurt her and that killed me, but really, it was for the best. Am I happy that now I have two failed marriages under my belt? Absolutely not. But seeing her, and how great she's doing now…" Callie shook her head with a smile. "I know it was the right call. Our marriage wouldn't have helped her get to where she is now. It wouldn't have helped me either. I feel like I've found _myself_ again, like I'm actually happy with _me_ and I know she's done the same. And as much as I wished _so_ badly for us to be able to have done that together, I know it was just not going to happen. We were too scared and trying desperately to hold onto each other, because we loved each other, to be able to see how much we really needed to just find and love ourselves. We'd put so many band-aid's over our issues that when we finally tried to rip them all off, the only possible outcome was us falling apart." Callie had been scared and devastated when she'd ended their marriage, but listening to Arizona talk about how much she _needed_ her and how terrified she was at the thought of life without her had made her realize exactly what they'd both needed. They should be together because they _want_ to be, not because they _had_ to, or were too scared to not be. Their relationship at the end hadn't been fair to either of them anymore, and she was done trying to fix something that just couldn't be fixed.

Tears continued to leak out of bright blue eyes, although less rapidly than before, as Arizona listened to Callie explain their downfall to Alex. To be perfectly honest, she'd felt as if the other woman had fallen out of love with her when they'd ended their marriage; not that she would have blamed her. By the time their marriage had ended, it'd turned into something she barely even recognized. She'd realized by now that Callie had done them both a favor by ending it, but that didn't necessarily make it sting any less to know that the woman you were supposed to spend your life with didn't want to spend it with you anymore. Listening to Callie talk to Alex, Arizona heard the pain and regret in her voice and knew it was just as hard, if not harder, on Callie as it had been on herself. Clearly the brunette had put some extra thought into it and had gained a better perspective on it, much as she had. They really had been able to feel free and find themselves, the new people they'd become, in the past few months of not being together. Still, Arizona couldn't help the swell in her chest when she heard Callie express the love she still felt for her.

"So do you still want to be with her then? I mean, I know you guys aren't married anymore, but that's a good thing from the sound of it; ya know, _finding_ yourselves and all that. But if you've found yourselves or whatever, and you still love each other, maybe you should try that crap Hunt and Yang did after their divorce and just…not be married anymore. Or something…" As much as Alex acted like he didn't care about crap like that, he couldn't hide that he liked Callie and Arizona together. They just seemed to belong together and the thought of them being with other people was just…weird.

Callie appeared to be lost in thought for a second before looking at Alex with a confused expression. "Wait, what?"

"Do you still want to be with Robbins? You know, now that you guys are good on your own."

Time stopped as Arizona held her breath in the hallway after Alex's question.

Callie seemed to consider his words for a moment, having never really thought about it like that before. "I-"

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Whatever answer Callie was about to give was swiftly cut off by the blaring sound of her pager going off. Looking down at the offending item, Callie let out a heavy sigh and patted her face to try and hide the fact that she'd just been crying like a crazy person. She stood up from her leaning spot on the desk and looked at Alex with an expression that he couldn't quite decipher. "I uh…I gotta go, it's a 911 to the pit." She put a hand on his shoulder as her face softened. "Thanks for listening, you're a good friend." She quickly wiped under her eyes. "How do I look?"

Alex let out a small laugh. "Dude, do you really want me to answer that?" He just couldn't help himself.

Callie swatted his arm as she made her way to the door and out, calling another thanks over her shoulder.

Alex stayed in his spot for a second, thinking about something, before letting out a scoff. "Really? You're going to just keep pretending like you didn't stay out there to listen to that conversation? I think we _both_ know that I know you well enough by now to know that you wouldn't be able to resist that, Robbins." He turned to the other door with a smug smirk on his face as a guilty looking blonde appeared.

Reluctantly entering the room, Arizona pulled her eyes away from her feet before looking up to meet knowing brown eyes. "I didn't think you saw me…" She hated getting caught.

Laughing a little, Alex stood up from the desk. "Oh, I saw you. You're fast on that leg, but apparently not fast enough." He let loose a cocky smile as the blonde rolled her eyes and scoffed at him.

"Whatever Alex." She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him and his jokes. "Ass."

"Yeah well, I'm an ass who just let you find out that your ex-wife, who you're still in love with, wants to be with you still." He put his hands on his hips as they stood facing each other. "So you owe me."

Arizona released a short laugh. "Please, I don't owe you anything; she didn't even answer you."

"Oh come on, that's crap, and you know it." If _he_ could tell that Callie obviously still wanted Arizona, there's no way that she didn't know it too.

Crippling doubt suddenly made its way into Arizona's mind, as it so often did. Her tough stance suddenly slumped and she looked back down at the floor. "It's so much more complicated than that…" Her voice was small, betraying all of her insecurities and fears.

"Yeah, don't I know it." He tried to pinpoint when exactly he'd allowed himself to become involved in all this emotional crap, thinking it might have something to do with the fact that all of his closest friends were female, as he looked down to his pager that had just begun to vibrate. "Look, if you don't want to try anything again with Torres, I get it. You guys went through a bunch of crap, and now you're over it, whatever. But personally, I think you're an idiot if you don't, because she's clearly still hung up on you. But what do I know? Gotta run, see you down there." He gave the blonde a pat on the shoulder as he left the room, leaving Arizona alone to wonder what the hell she was supposed to do now, with all of this new information plaguing her brain.

Arizona took in a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to make sense of what exactly she was feeling and what exactly she was going to do. She rubbed her forehead and shook her head slowly, having absolutely no idea what to even think. ' _Well, crap…'_


End file.
